A rowdy crowd of about 300 attended a hearing last week on the Downtown Brooklyn rezoning plan.

A variety of industry, labor, political, and community representatives weighed in. A number of the speakers, including State Senator Velmanette Montgomery, stated that the plan would negatively impact the community by displacing residents and overwhelming the transportation system.

The plan would increase densities in downtown Brooklyn south to about Atlantic Avenue and east roughly to Flatbush Ave., including the areas currently designated as Urban Renewal areas by the Atlantic Terminal and the Brooklyn Academy of Music. It would add over 4 million square feet of commercial and residential space initially (about the size of MetroTech), with millions of square feet of additional development possible under the "full build out" scenario.

City planning reps said that additional mass transit demand may be handled by a variety of station upgrades and other improvements to the transit network, such as connecting the Jay and Lawrence Street stations in 2006. Traffic woes are supposed to be addressed mainly by closing certain streets and widening others. But city planners concede that the development envisioned in the new zoning plan will inevitably worsen congestion downtown.

Community Consulting Services, a local planning group, said the draft environmental impact statement looks at only a fraction of likely downtown development, and understates transportation impacts for the area it does analyze. They argue that a full 40 million square feet of new development is likely, and that the new jobs, residences and attractions the development will bring will create demands on the mass transit system, streets and highways that today’s capacity cannot accommodate.

Most people agree that a transportation plan for downtown Brooklyn is necessary. The Downtown Brooklyn Council, Councilmember David Yassky, along with other politicians, Community Board 2, local businesses and community groups seem to agree that a harder look at transportation in connection with the big development plans is needed. Congressman Ed Towns is also championing a transportation study. The debate arises as to when to conduct it. Many city officials think that a transportation plan can wait, while the plan’s many critics say transportation plans — both for roadways and mass transit — should be integral to the rezoning and development proposals.

It’s worthwhile to contrast the downtown Brooklyn issues with the process the city has established to boost large-scale development on Manhattan’s fare West Side. In that case, direct mayoral involvement has led NYC Transit to become a partner in a major rezoning plan, coupling it with studies of extending the #7 subway line. The difference is that plenty of subway lines already traverse downtown Brooklyn and its environs. But if those lines are at or near capacity, the issue is nearly the same: is there sufficient room in the transportation system to support more intensive use of the area? 

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